Acceptable noise on new Canon 450D?

Hi everyone

I have just tested out my new 450D yesterday and was slightly concerned about the level of noise present at low ISO's.
I have noticed a lot of red grain in shots the sky in shots taken in bright daylight and at ISO100 and I am pretty disappointed at the level of noise and grain that is present in all shots I took in twilight light, just as the sun went down and the shutter was releasing for 1-30 seconds.
Here is one sample and a 100% crop:

http://www.stevearnold​photo.com/miscfiles/fu​llophouse.jpg

100%
http://www.stevearnold​photo.com/miscfiles/cr​opophouse.jpg

It seems that on first impressions, my boyfriends trusty Sony a200 is producing much better quality images with respect to noise, or lack thereof. When he does long exposure twilight shots at ISO100 with that he gets such smooth flawless pictures but using the 450D we havent yet been able to produce that level of quality.

FYI, the EXIF for the above image is as follows:

ISO: 100
55mm using the kit lens
f9.0
1/30sec

also, we had long exposure noise reduction and high iso noise reduction turned on (although the latter wouldnt have come into play anyway)

Any comments or suggestions you may have would be most welcome.

i forgot to mention - the image is unedited and the histogram in lightroom shows no shadow clipping on either the full image or the crop. This is not a case of me bringing up the brightness of the shadows to reveal the grain

All I see in your 100% crop is a dark blur.

You will always get some noise in underexposed and shadow areas of an image irrespective of ISO or camera.. This is one of the give and take properties of digital photography..

If you try to bring these shadows/underexposed areas up in post processing it gets even worse..

The 100% crop you submitted is invalid,,you are showing a shadow area.. Pixel peeping is counter productive,,it opens up a can of worms especially to those inexperienced in digital photography.. Look at the entire image as a whole then evaluate the image..

Pixel peeping is like trying to evalute just 5 sq cm of the Mona Lisa or listening to just a few bars of Ode To Joy..

heres another example from the same shoot.

Hello and welcome

How large are you thinking of printing, because that 100% crop would have to be printed on a sheet of paper bigger than A0 (well over 1 meter wide) to be able to fit the entire picture in.

Second at f/14 i believe you are beginning to experiance diffraction effects, which will cause softening in pictures.

thirdly maybe shooting in raw and use some noise reduction would help, long exposures will be are noiser and more noticable in areas without much contrast.

fouth that full image is amazing!! lovely shot.

KCY wrote in post #8617114
Hello and welcome

How large are you thinking of printing, because that 100% crop would have to be printed on a sheet of paper bigger than A0 (well over 1 meter wide) to be able to fit the entire picture in.

Second at f/14 i believe you are beginning to experiance diffraction effects, which will cause softening in pictures.

thirdly maybe shooting in raw and use some noise reduction would help, long exposures will be are noiser and more noticable in areas without much contrast.

fouth that full image is amazing!! lovely shot.

Bang on. Pixel peeping that is pointless. The shot is awesome. Print it out and you won't even notice the noise.

tkbslc wrote in post #8616010
All I see in your 100% crop is a dark blur.

LOL +1

Okay, that was a little mean I apologize, but what "yogestee" said nails it.

Good advice =)

What is your workflow? Its hard too say much w/o knowing.

Do you shoot JPEGs or raw followed by conversion to JPEG? The reason I ask is because what you are seeing might be a difference in the noise reduction (NR) applied by the Sony verses the Canon. I too get less than stellar results when I shoot RAW, like you, however, this is soon corrected when I add a little NR in processing. Since I can the right amount of NR, I get better pictures than relying on the camera alone to do it for me.

Hey everyone, thanks for your feedback once more.

I shot both these images in RAW only and used lightroom to do the crop and export to jpeg.

The only other editing I did was to undo the automatic "blacks" adjustment that lightroom makes when importing the files.

I would have to say that I would prefer the camera to do the noise reduction rather than myself in post as it does the second exposure with the shutter closed thing, which i dont think you could replicate in post.

I dont intend on printing at A0, but I do sometimes print at 12x8, so the grain may well show at that size.

Anyway, i think I will have to do some more tests at different apertures and in different conditions etc.

On the subject of f numbers, could it be possible that it is a symptom of using the kit lens as opposed to a higher end one? I hadnt considered lenses affecting noise before, but my boyfriend does have a tamron 17-50 f2.8 lens on his sony which is a big upgrade from his old kit lens. Would going the same way help me here?

kim-i wrote in post #8617581
I would have to say that I would prefer the camera to do the noise reduction rather than myself in post as it does the second exposure with the shutter closed thing, which i dont think you could replicate in post.

You'd be amazed at what you can do in post. I do all my own noise reduction in post and while it has to be done a LOT especially in dark shots with the XSi, the end results are just fine. Mostly importantly you can reduce noise SELECTIVELY in post, where in the camera it's the whole shot or nothing.

kim-i,

I just think you are being hypercritical of the noise. Not sure what you used before, but the XSi performs very, very well for noise. You say your BF's A200 is doing better, but I think you look at the whole picture as well as shots over ISO 400, you will find your XSi does an outstanding job. But the A200 is certainly not a "trusty old" camera as it came out the same year as the XSi, so don't expect your Canon to blow it away in every regard. Both are good cameras.

You just need to step back a little. No camera creates perfect images at 100% view. None. Period. But the good news is that there is little practical application for 100% pixel level shots. Just go shoot, apply a little NR in post if you see obvious noise. Don't zoom in looking for noise because nobody else will do that to your shots. Try printing a few and you will see how little noise shows in even larger prints. And have fun. Examining shots for every minor error takes all the fun out of the hobby.

An A0 is 16 times the size of an 8x12 in area, 4 times as big along each edge. If you want to predict print quality with a 100% zoom you will have to get up from your chair and view your monitor from across the room.

kim-i wrote in post #8615937
I have just tested out my new 450D yesterday and was slightly concerned about the level of noise present at low ISO's.
I have noticed a lot of red grain in shots the sky in shots taken in bright daylight and at ISO100 and I am pretty disappointed at the level of noise and grain that is present in all shots I took in twilight light, just as the sun went down and the shutter was releasing for 1-30 seconds.

The XSi does have a low level of noise at ISO100 that you can see at the pixel level - I noticed it when I got mine. I got used to processing around it quite quickly and soon got addicted to the superb level of detail that the sensor can yield. It's a great little camera with an excellent sensor that's not hobbled with a strong AA filter - stick with it.

tkbslc wrote in post #8618409
kim-i,

I just think you are being hypercritical of the noise. Not sure what you used before, but the XSi performs very, very well for noise. You say your BF's A200 is doing better, but I think you look at the whole picture as well as shots over ISO 400, you will find your XSi does an outstanding job. But the A200 is certainly not a "trusty old" camera as it came out the same year as the XSi, so don't expect your Canon to blow it away in every regard. Both are good cameras.

You just need to step back a little. No camera creates perfect images at 100% view. None. Period. But the good news is that there is little practical application for 100% pixel level shots. Just go shoot, apply a little NR in post if you see obvious noise. Don't zoom in looking for noise because nobody else will do that to your shots. Try printing a few and you will see how little noise shows in even larger prints. And have fun. Examining shots for every minor error takes all the fun out of the hobby.

Wise words indeed!